A downhill start to the Fourth of July is back for Little Rock runners.
The Firecracker Fast 5K will start on Kavanaugh Boulevard in Little Rock's Heights neighborhood at 7:30 a.m. Monday.
A Fourth of July road-race staple since 1977, the Firecracker was, like most of the world, required the last two years to defer to covid-19. The race was canceled in 2020, and last year its celebrated and rare point-to-point downhill course was changed to a conventional loop, common to road races in Arkansas.
Many entrants were disappointed, but race authorities said they never considered abandoning the route in place for the last 43 years.
"The plan was always to go back to the downhill course," said Sean Coughlan, Firecracker co-race director along with Noelle Coughlan since 2014.
The married couple became directors when they bought Gary Smith's Easy Runner running store, now Fleet Feet, in 2013. Smith founded the race in 1977 and directed several versions before he moved the course to its current route from the Heights to War Memorial Stadium, with its approximate elevation drop of 340 feet, in 1989.
The loop course used last summer was primarily employed to prevent vehicles crowded with runners and race workers for their return to the race's start and transportation home, a hallmark behavior for the spread of contagions.
"We kind of had our hands full last year with covid," Sean Coughlan said. "Trying to put people on busses or shuttles back to the starting line last year, that was a bit of a no-no, and that starting line gets like a sardine can up there. Last year, really our mentality was to try to reduce contact with people, but there was no debate that we would never go back to the original course. That was always the plan."
Smith said he had little doubt the downhill course would survive covid.
"I was a little concerned but not much," Smith said. "I talked to Sean and Noelle, and I think they planned all along to go back to the fast course. I thought they would because I think there are a lot of people who like that race because of the course. It's fast, it's downhill, and it's fun."
The first Firecracker was a 7-mile and very hilly loop that wound through the Heights near Smith's first store. Smith said he used his car's odometer to measure the route. He also said he could not remember why he made the race 7 miles.
"It was just a terrible course, but we didn't know what we were doing then," Smith said. "It had so many hills, and we started the race later in the morning when it's hotter. It has definitely improved as the years have gone by."
In 1978, the race distance was reduced to a more conventional 4 miles, then common for road races in Arkansas and the U.S., and it was set on loops in west Little Rock and later in Maumelle through 1988.
Smith said he spoke with officials at War Memorial Stadium about the possibility of ending the 1989 Firecracker on the facility's playing surface, then a site for several University of Arkansas football games each season. On the day his request was granted, Smith said he drove back to his Heights store on Kavanaugh from the stadium and noticed for the first time a coincidence that put the Firecracker Fast 5K in the place it will return to Monday.
The race now finishes on Monroe Street between the War Memorial parking lot and the University of Arkansas for Medical Science's campus.
"When we met with those people to see if we could finish the race in the stadium, and they gave us the OK, I drove back to the store, and I almost drove the course we use now," Smith said. "I looked on my odometer and it was like 3 miles. We didn't have to change it just a whole lot."
Coughlan said the downhill, point-to-point course is where the Firecracker belongs.
"People like that course," he said.
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NoneAt a glance
Firecracker Fast 5K
WHEN 7:30 a.m. Monday
WHERE Little Rock
STARTING LINE The race will start on Kavanaugh Boulevard in the Heights neighborhood